"This is the way."
Hello everyone!
Of course there's people out there who are unhappy and a ton of rumours are bopping around.
It happens with anything and everything these days. Social media and the internet in general seem to be starved and take even just someone casually turning their head to the very next level of OHMYGOD THEY'RE GOING XYZ!!!
I swear I sometimes think I'm living in Bizarro world.
BUT that said, I know I absolutely loved the past two months, and can't believe they're already over.
How does time fly by SO fast?!?
So without further ado, let's not waste any more of it. Because we have a lone gunslinger in the wild, wild West of a galaxy far, far away and his baby to check in with, in the third season of the acclaimed hit series, The Mandalorian.
Now because this show takes a bit to arrive on our screens, let's recap: Mando (Pedro Pascal) is a bounty hunter who finds a little green hobgoblin, Grogu, and takes him under his wing. They're chased the length and breadth of the galaxy by Moff Gideon (Giancarlo Esposito) while Mando's attempting to reunite Grogu with his kind, the Jedi. Through many, many trials and tribulations, he finally succeeds, and the kid goes off to train with Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill).
Before we jump into season three though, I have to make a note for those who didn't watch The Book of Boba Fett: Grogu does in fact train with Luke for at least two years before being presented with a choice of Jedi or Mandalorian, and choosing the latter re-joins Mando during the man's quest to aid Boba in pacifying and uniting Mos Eisley.
Bad baby! NO SQUEEZIE!
That done though, it's time for them to head on off to their own adventures - namely, redeeming Mando, who took his helmet off to say goodbye to Grogu, and is now no longer a Mandalorian as per their Creed, so he must bathe in the Living Waters of Mandalore.
Except ... Mandalore's been bombed into oblivion, and the surface can't sustain life anymore, so, you know, he might die just entering atmosphere, as per the Armorer (Emily Swallow). Our guy is made of sterner stuff though, and goes on a hunt for a droid who might be able to scout the land in front of him so he knows whether or not it's safe to actually do a walkabout. With a little help from Peli, his favourite (possibly only) mechanic, he does in fact get a droid (and not IG-11 whose memory circuit is bust causing it to nearly kill everyone around it upon waking) and arrives on Mandalore.
The planet isn't cursed or poisoned, but it IS a wasteland, so now he just needs to find them Living Waters ... but of course this wouldn't be a space show if Mando didn't walk right into a trap (and this AFTER already having to kick butt). Sending Grogu away when the kid can't save him on his own, the little green one does the smartest thing: obeys his father and heads straight for Bo-Katan Kryze.
Baby on board.
If you've been paying attention to Star Wars even just a little bit, you'll know Bo (Katee Sackhoff) is a legend among characters that were introduced in the last twenty years or so. She was brought in during the show's second season, but because her character doesn't have the Darksaber (currently held by our very own Mando), her troops abandoned her and she's been sulking on her throne.
This changes when she sees Grogu in distress and they head back to Mandalore together to rescue Dadalorian, which they succeed - primarily because Bo DOES in fact know how to use the Darksaber and successfully chops his abductor into spare parts with it.
Then, because it might just be better overall, she takes them both down to the Living Waters, where Din drops into a chasm like a rock, she jumps in to save him AGAIN ... and stares into the face of a grumbly, woken-up Mythosaur, the ancient symbol of their people supposed to have gone completely extinct. She's also the ONLY one of the pair to see it, so she keeps that knowledge to herself.
The next step is to tag along with Din to the covert where she becomes part of it quite by accident, because she both bathed in the Living Waters and hasn't removed her helmet since, but it's a nice way for Bo to finally be surrounded by Mandalorians again, particularly because her home was just bombed by TIE fighters and she literally has nowhere to turn to.
The annual gathering of the Council of Bucket Heads.
So she immerses herself in Mandalorian culture as she hasn't witnessed before, considering the covert follows the Way a bit more rigidly and traditionally than others, and she helps Din with Grogu's training for a bit; because these are Mandalorians and they seem to always just live on the edge, one of the kids gets snatched by a flying beast.
Said kid, by the way, is Paz Vizsla's kid, so naturally the Mandalorians are in hot pursuit, but only Bo has the presence of mind to jump into her ship to follow the thing to map its location and bring the information back so they can form a rescue party. I mean, listen, if you're going to go hunt down one of your missing kids, it might as well be done well, right? So they go, climb the mountain, and disturb the nest before having an epic aerial battle and finally delivering the beast's three chicks to the Armorer as foundlings.
This is the way.
Just as the Mandalorians have now settled in and might even live peacefully together, Carson Teva suddenly pops up at their super secret hidden location, revealing that it's Din's droid, of all things, that led him there, as they served together in the Rebellion. But he brings bad news.
I like those odds. Baby on board, part II.
When Mando was hunting for a droid, he spoke with Greef Karga (Carl Weathers), and at the time helped him with some pirates on Nevarro, which is now coming back to bite Karga in the ass, since the pirate king has invaded the planet. Seeing as this is a friend, Mando puts the matter of helping him before the other Mandalorians, after Teva explains the New Republic won't touch it, because one, it's the Outer Rim, and two ... stupid red tape, honestly.
Plus some sneaky little suggestions of maybe letting Nevarro suffer because they're trying to be independent. Government at its finest, I'm telling you!
Anyway, Paz sides with Din and the Mandalorians do, in fact, liberate Nevarro, in a fun and exciting fight sequence during which Din outflies everyone, Paz is a tank in human form, and the Armorer uses pirates for her new church bells, her tools happily ringing and bonking away.
This is an important victory, because a grateful Karga gifts land to the Mandalorians which he'd originally promised Din, offering them a chance to live in the open and not hiding anymore. The Armorer takes this opportunity and the winds of change to impress on Bo that they NEED to unify the scattered forces of their people, allowing her to take off her helmet and go among the stars to bring them back - and to see if they can MAYBE reclaim Mandalore while they're at it.
Only in Star Wars is this perfectly normal.
Which brings us to arguably the season's funniest episode, taking place on Plazir-15 where Axe Woves leads the fleet and is a hired gun for the planet's leaders ... who turn out to be Lizzo and Jack Black.
Listen, it gets even better, because they commission our Mandalorian duo to solve a mystery of misbehaving droids for them (while Lizzo babysits Grogu and makes everyone in the world jealous), turning this into Law & Order: Mandalorians on the spot.
We then realize that CHRISTOPER LLOYD is the culprit, and a Separatist on top of everything else, which is a call-back right to the Clone Wars ("Politics," as Bo tells Din, who has no clue), and have him exiled. Lizzo knights Grogu, and Bo and Din receive the key to Plazir-15
They probably should have used to wallop Axe over the head with when he's being an idiot. But Bo challenges him more traditionally for the fleet, beats him, and points out Mandalorians are stronger together. Din then conveniently out-thinks everyone there and returns the Darksaber to Bo because, one, he got disarmed of it back on Mandalore, and two, she defeated his disarmer, so by Darksaber rules of combat, it belongs to her again.
Your song is not yet written. I will serve you until it is.
The Mandalorians now have what they need to reclaim their home world, so they head on off to Mandalore, where their scouting party gets the surprise of their life when they run into MANDALORIAN SURVIVORS ON THE SURFACE. And if people are wondering why one of them looks so familiar - well, it's Cylone from Top Gun: Maverick, who apparently somehow got stranded in deep space during a training mission or something.
Naturally things don't go smoothly since they get attacked by wildlife, but the survivors DO lead the group to the Great Forge, the heart of Mandalore (with the Armorer taking the wounded back to the fleet in the meantime) ... where they're attacked. By Beskar-wearing troopers, because SURPRISE!
Moff Gideon's been using Mandalore as his base, because who was going to question him when he said he decimated the planet to begin with?
In a desperate last stand after Din's roped up and dragged off, Paz Vizsla sacrifices himself to allow Bo and the others to escape, which enables her to signal Axe - he doesn't know what's been going on because he'd been sent to jet up to the fleet for reinforcements, and this is important to note because atmospheric interference means that the group is cut off from said fleet, and vice-versa, but he does get his orders before he's cut off, and just in time, too.
RIP, big guy. This was, indeed, the way.
Evacuating everyone, he then uses the mother ship to engage the Imperials who come at him, while down below, Din frees himself with some help from Grogu in IG-11's mechanical body, and the two go after Gideon while Bo and the others hole up waiting for help to arrive. They discover that the planetary survivors located flora native to their world and planted gardens - proving that there IS still live on Mandalore and it CAN be rebuilt, if they try.
And oh, they try, with the Armorer arriving at the head of the troops, allowing Bo to lead them right back into battle to reclaim their home, which turns into some really epic fight sequences and a Doordash order by Axe who rams the failing ship right into the Imperial base (he gets out, don't worry about it).
But not before first Din, then Bo have a go at Gideon; Din runs off to rescue Grogu from the Praetorian guard Gideon has at his disposal, and the duo defeat them by working seamlessly together, then return to aid Bo after Gideon destroys the Darksaber, of all possible outcomes. He happily gets roasted in his Walmart Vader armor when the ship hits the base, but Grogu forms a Force shield around the trio and thus keeps them alive.
Vader only WISHES he could be this cool.
The planet now theirs, Din formally adopts Grogu as his son so that he may become a Mandalorian Apprentice, and Bo re-ignites the Great Forge to begin rebuilding with her people. Karga, that rich uncle everyone wants but not many have the luck to have, is more than happy to have IG-11 back, this time as Marshal of the New Republic, procured by Din, who strikes a deal with Teva that he'll be bounty hunting Imperials and helping the Republic police the Outer Rim.
But first - he finally takes Karga up on the offer of a little cottage, settling there in peace to watch his boy Force-juggle frogs.
THE END!
Man, this season guys. SO MUCH TO UNPACK. Because, remember those fighters that bombed Bo's home? If we check in on Coruscant we'll see that the New Republic implemented an Amnesty program for Imperials they now have to deal with, among them none other than Dr. Pershing, you know, the doctor who was helping Gideon back in the day with his cloning stuff?
They see me rollin' ...
Well, be prepared for a VERY short resurgence of this particular character, because he gets tricked by the woman still working as Gideon's spy, caught by New Republic forces, and literally stuck into a lobotomizing machine which ... you can imagine what happens when she turns the dial up.
And no, the others don't even notice, because apparently they're so bogged down by red tape that problems such as this one just don't ever crop up.
This is important to remember, because Pershing was the only one who really knew the whole cloning thing, which means Palpatine's resurrection is pushed back a little bit, since they have to dig through the shambles of that research and figure things out on their own.
And probably the most important bit of all ... during his time with the Armorer, Grogu remembers part of his rescue from Coruscant, during which we get to see AHMED FREAKING BEST be a complete beast of a Jedi, working with sympathetic Naboo armed forces to get the little one off-world, which begs the question: WHY did the Nabooans help? Is this a link to Padmé Amidala, showing that she stood by the Jedi regardless what Anakin told her back in Episode III? Or is that a reach and it's just coincidence it was Nabooans?
Is it a bird? Is it a plane? Nope, it's Favreau and Filoni, rebuilding Star Wars one show at a time.
I highly doubt it. Nothing is a coincidence in this show, because Favreau and Filoni are masters at their craft. They delivered an action-packed, plot-driven focus of a ride with comedic sprinkles throughout, reunited the Mandalorians and set up Din to become the bounty hunter we've come to know and love again starting with season four.
To all the people complaining about things being useless or taking too long or not taking long at all: not everything has to be spelled out. You don't have to be spoon-fed what's going on in a show, sometimes you just have to use your brains and connect the dots all on your lonesome.
This season had a much stronger teamwork makes the dream work vibe than previous ones, but it's safe to say we'll probably be returning to the lone wolf and his son adventuring across the galaxy in the next one, though Din will never again be completely alone, either. He has family now, a people he belongs to, friends in incredibly high places, and is embroiled in a conflict that's only just begun to spark.
I can't wait!
xx
*images and video not mine
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